


Nights In White Satin

by sasha_b



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-26
Updated: 2012-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-31 18:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drink and a talk.  Shane, Rick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nights In White Satin

**Author's Note:**

> written for the walking dead kink meme on Live Journal. spoilers up through mid season two.

“Where’d you find this?”

Rick picks up the half empty bottle of Jack; Shane laughs and scrubs a hand over his almost bald head, shoulders tight – it’s fucking hot, man, hot as Hades, hot as maybe any day _before_ that he can remember. He shrugs and the truck bed _pings_ with his movement. “Inside,” he answers, cryptic, aware Rick would not be happy that he’d pilfered the drink from Hershel’s cabinet. Not that the old man drinks anyways, but still.

The night would normally be considered gorgeous, but he’s too sweaty to fully enjoy anything but sitting still in the back of the truck and not moving too much. And the Jack. It’s been a while.

He shoves over when Rick jumps to sit next to him, the other man’s arm pushing him a bit. It’s a game they’ve played many times, and Shane grumbles jokingly as he always has done, _taking up too much room, buddy_ ignored by Rick as it always is. It’s been longer than a heartbeat since they’ve sat together, quietly. Things are oddly relaxed in the moment. That feels wrong. But Shane can’t help the smile that pulls at his lips, the smile that comes when he realizes how long it’s been since he’s had a chance to just see _Rick_ , and the fact that he actually has that chance, well, he shakes his head, blowing a noisy breath through his mouth, Rick and him, sitting there, together.

He finds a weird little solace in it, no matter the stress and _odd_ between them, no matter the difference in the here and now, no matter the _Shane and Lori_ that Rick doesn’t know about. That doesn’t matter when Rick shoves him in the arm again, a small smile stretching the other man’s face, too long held in a frown. Like old times, he thinks, memories coming to the surface, the good old days, not so long ago.

Rick picks up the bottle and swigs, and Shane’s eyebrows rise. The moon casts a long shadow from the trees that wave silently, worthless sentinels now that the barn is empty. Empty as it will ever be, empty as the gun Shane turned on the walkers and Otis, truth be told. He takes the bottle from Rick and drinks, then passes it back.

Rick tilts the glass back, his throat bobbing as he swallows, long and deep, and Shane can’t keep his eyes from the motion, oddly stupefied, fascinated by the adam’s apple as it moves, Rick’s face stubbled and dark like his own. They’ve both seen shit, done shit, become things they –

“I was handling it, you know.”

Rick hasn’t spoken in five minutes, and Shane barks a laugh that’s harsh to his own ears. “You still beatin’ that drum, huh, friend.” He leans against the side of the truck, but not far enough that he can’t still feel Rick’s heat. He swings his feet and Rick gradually does the same. The wind picks up and begins to dry the omnipresent sweat, blowing the scent of whiskey and musk at Shane’s nose. His nostrils flare with his in-breath.

“You wouldn’t know subtle if it bit you in the ass, huh? Why you gotta be so – Shane, Jesus.” Rick sighs, shooting the air out of his nose, his breath whiskey tinged and hot. Or so Shane can imagine. “You ever thought you might be just a bit of an over reactor?”

Shane opens his mouth, retaliation on his tongue, burning and painful.

“…remember junior year?”

He snaps his lips shut, retort dying. “Yeah, so?”

“Remember that girl you took to the prom? The one that wore the white dress, the one you wanted so hard you called her sister beforehand and bought the right color flowers to go with the dress?”

Shane smiles and rubs his chin. “Jennifer Thomas.”

“That’s subtle, brother. That’s forethought. This, the barn, the…everything,” Rick sweeps his arm in a wide arc, “this was a reaping.”

Shane takes the bottle of Jack from Rick and drinks the amber liquid, the heat of it burning his throat, his hand stinging when Rick jerks it away. “Hey,” he says lamely, but doesn’t fight it when Rick swallows the last of it, the empty bottle tinkling against the steel of the truck bed. Shrugging, he leans back on his elbows, the liner scratching his skin. He licks his dry lips, thinking of Rick’s comments, Rick now, Rick _then_ , them _then_ , junior year, closest of friends, new brothers, laughter, tears, school and home, life, love.

“It hadta be done.”

“I know, Shane, I know, damn it.” Rick’s next to him, both of them lying with their backs on the bed, stars above them, dotting the black sky, so broad and bare, just like everything else – home, life, love. Shane’s gut twists, empty, fucking empty and hollow, no matter what he eats. He feels his gun at his waist, strength in metal and power, faster than anything he could ever think or say. He’s not book smart like Rick is, never forgotten that, but he’s just as quick and just as able to plan and yeah, his way might not be the fucking _subtle_ way, but it’s a way, and it got shit done. He got Lori and Carl out, didn’t he?

“I’m sorry,” Rick murmurs suddenly, and Shane’s not sure what he’s sorry _for_ but he nods, his hair scraping the truck, the noise echoing weirdly in his head. “I am, Shane.”

“’s’okay,” he answers, the drink warming him, Rick stilling next to him – the other man always was a mover and a shaker – and they lay shoulder to shoulder, watching the stars, the sounds from the house behind them ceasing as night progresses. Shane raises his right hand, the fingers tight from gripping his gun for so long (for so long, he’s been protecting Lori and Carl forever, it seems), and waves it back and forth in front of his eyes, watching the tracers that dance around the periphery of his vision.

“I trust you,” Rick whispers, voice almost too soft to hear, tone shaky and words almost a question, and Shane stills, if only to hear the ghost of them, rippling through the air, precious words, that his friend would still say them.

“Yeah,” he mumbles back, whiskey warmed breath humid and dank. Breeze, dark as the sky around them, full of the stars that they’d never seen in Atlanta, bright and blinking and painful to Shane’s slightly tipsy eyes.

“Don’t make me sorry, brother.”

That’s twice Rick’s called him that, and twice that Shane’s wanted to vomit from memories and from confusion and from the amount of time he’s spent _alone_ since Rick came back from the dead. He’d left him there, left his best friend there, in that kill zone, full of the dead and he can’t begin to understand why he’s angry at _Rick_ and himself. But Rick more, ‘cause he came back, and Shane hates the guilt that won’t die within and _he knows_ never will. The look on Carl’s face when Rick showed up, man. That cry of “dad! Dad!” It still eats at Shane, still kicks and screams at him, when he’d been the one to protect them all, after the crap started. He shuffles his feet, hating indecision and thought more than pretty much anything else right now. Maybe anything except being alone, friendless, no family – no Carl, no Lori, no Rick. No the four of them, together.

Shane doesn’t answer, and after a moment, Rick slides over a bit, their sides aligned, bodies touching from shoulder to foot, and Shane sighs, briefly and silently, Rick’s smell and Jack and sweat washing over him in an arc of _familiar_ so strong he aches with the intensity and he lets his hand graze the side of Rick’s jeans, _friend, trusted, brother, family, more._

Not his family. But still his friend, even after all that’s gone.

They lay there, quiet surrounding them, Shane’s breath slowing after several moments, the recognizable and long wanted (and hated and loved) feel of Rick’s closeness enough to lull him into that false sense of security he’d felt with Lori in the woods, and with Carl in the water.

He takes comfort in Rick, comfort in the old, comfort in his friend that he loves more than life – not true, he thinks, anger rearing its head – _you left him, after all_ \- and the laugh that comes is only slightly bitter.

He can feel Rick’s smile and he echoes it, just a bit tightly.


End file.
